


idfc.

by peachist



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Comfort, Denial of Feelings, Heavy Angst, M/M, fear of intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachist/pseuds/peachist
Summary: It might’ve been a mistake, a slip of the tongue perhaps. In the brief lapse of silence that stretches between the shaking sighs and sharp curses, the King utters one word. It shatters the unspoken promises and opens the doors they had tried to keep locked and forgotten.





	idfc.

The darkness is a comfort. It shrouds them in a fleeting sense of security, protecting them from the thing that haunt them the most. The King lays with a killer as though he were a mere lover, reveling in the searing heat of another powerful body. Muscle rolls against muscle, and the killer basks in being powerless, _vulnerable._ Thrives being a faceless body beneath another. Here, there are no names, is no warmth, is no tenderness; as much as his soul begs for it, how his heart aches, he utters nothing but those fragile breaths that are pushed from him with each long stroke.

It might’ve been a mistake, a slip of the tongue perhaps. In the brief lapse of silence that stretches between the shaking sighs and sharp curses, the King utters one word. It shatters the unspoken promises and opens the doors they had tried to keep locked and forgotten.

“ _Erik_ ,” the King breathes, his hands delicate as though the hips beneath his palms are eggshells. The dimpled plane of his stomach quivers with the noise that follows that simple _mistake_. It’s a scared gasp, exhibiting his blatant fear. Hips settle into the slot they were made for, flush to weakened thighs, as his mind catches up to his mouth. It processes slowly, whether through guilt, shame, or daring- and he speaks again. It’s silent and louder than crashing waves in the stormy oceans of Erik’s mind, threatening to overtake him if he isn’t careful enough.

Those invisible hands cool his feverish skin when they move, chased by his body. Erik sees very little, doesn’t want to, yet his eyes grow in apprehension as the King looms. His weight goes to one arm, then to an elbow, cratering the luxurious comforter beside Erik’s head while the other hand hesitates. Just over his left breast his palm rests open and Erik dreads the thought of the King feeling his heart promising to do what his words fail to do.

It is intimidating-- the solicitous gaze, pacifying authority, soothing power in benevolence. It makes butterflies erupt in flurries inside him, fluttering hard to choke him on a sob and drown him in their wings. It wracks his shielded heart with a new wave of desire, stronger than anything else before, charged with pent up fantasies.

It is not the King that intimidates him. The King is hardened by combat and tragedy, ruling with an iron fist of practiced discipline and earned respect. He has a unified country at his side, wholly prepared to die fighting in his honor. There is no fear in his eyes as he strikes down those who threaten his people, nor remorse.

It is T’Challa that intimidates him because Erik knows _T’Challa_.

T’Challa is not the King. Soft is his smile when Okoye makes a quip at his expense- not demanding to be respected but laughing along, knowing he has the respect of his bullies. His eyes crinkle and shine with merit as he laughs, belly-deep. Cool and collected, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event to witness the wrong side of him; and yet never striking another even if the justification is bred from personal vendetta.

Always allows himself to be true with everything. _Foolish_ with his emotions, he offers his whole self to those dearest in the search for connection, and steals your heart away as each wave pulls you farther out. Selfless in any way but _so_ selfish with everything.

There is no fear in his eyes as he strokes down the plush swell of Erik’s lower lip, nor remorse. Close behind the flat of his thumb, his mouth hovers with words caught in his throat. What is a fatal mistake in Erik’s eyes is an opportunity in T’Challa’s; a chance to explore what trepidation has stopped them from discovering. It is where the ocean meets the shore, ebbing and flowing with patience. It carries fragments of promises to shore in aged bottles and seashells, destined to reach if the tide were high enough. A barrier of jagged rocks that lines the beach offers a stockade that is not as impenetrable as each lap chips at it; slowly, surely. The progress has been painstakingly slow, millennia of coaxing with infrequent touches that whisper intimacy and the sound of the silent oaths weathering the stones protecting Erik. And with patience, Erik no longer bristles with faux anger at the mention of the King, nor does he offer any mocking annoyance in his company. Still, ever having his guard high and his eyes away, there is never a return of intimacy; not even so much as a smile in regards to his affections.

Yet here, it feels different. The mask he wears is fractured at all edges, and his tragically gentle interior is beared for the other to see. Where he pushes, there is give and there is hope. But so close to the epiphany T'Challa's heart wants, the ocean stills. Waves become nothing, sentences fracture and erase themselves on his tongue, and he freezes. All the comes loose is a breath that trembles, full.

Erik’s eyes watch, a threatening shine of tears edging on. It’s fear, relief, acceptance, _love_ all at once. The shore rushes to meet the waves as they crash in a kiss, Erik’s lips are the first to grace the others. Gentle as they roll together, T’Challa cups his cheek tenderly and wipes away his tears with a smile to his lips. It’s a gesture as deep as the vast blue, as true as the tides, and there is an understanding that rises to the surface.

The salt is smooth to the skin, and the pain is imaginary. All the hurt thought to follow, the false  beliefs he surrounded himself with prove to be just that. The waters hold nothing if not an intimacy only shared with the shores it laps at; the shallows hold no snakes and the depths, no sharks. He dives in, his breath slow to leave his lungs, liberated from the fear of drowning.


End file.
